12-Scam

by Parnell Hall

  “She doesn’t know?”

  “No. According to her, seven o’clock she went out the front door, never looked back.”

  “What about pictures?”

  “Pictures?”

  “Yeah, pictures. Did anyone take any pictures?”

  “Wait a minute. What are you getting at, pictures?”

  “Don’t be a jerk. I mean compromising pictures. While I was so drunk I don’t remember, did anyone take pictures of me with the girl?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “You didn’t ask her?”

  “Why the hell would I ask her that?”

  “Are you kidding? I told you I was being set up. A compromising picture would be the icing on the cake. Hell, you were the one who brought it up, for Christ’s sake. Saying if someone wanted to embarrass me, that’s how they’d do it. Send a picture to all the stockholders. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “Yeah, but I meant racy pictures. Pictures with your pants down. Compromising stuff. Just sitting in the bar with the girl isn’t going to do it.”

  “Oh, really? I happen to be a married man.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. So how does it look like then?”

  “That’s the first time you brought up the point.”

  “So?”

  “So, you don’t seem too concerned about it. You’re scared to death someone might send a picture to the stockholders. How come you’re not worried they might send one to your wife?”

  “Are you kidding me? There’s a proxy fight going on.”

  “Even so.”

  “Look, schmuck,” Pritchert said. “It’s none of your damn business. But the fact is I can tell my wife someone’s trying to frame me because of the proxy fight. I can’t tell a stockholder that.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Well, the subject of pictures never came up, and the way the girl tells it, there probably weren’t any.”

  “Then what was the big idea?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Well, what does the girl say?”

  “Just what I told you. She was hired to keep you in the bar until seven o’clock. That’s all she knows.”

  “Does she know who hired her?”

  “She never met him. Just talked to him on the phone.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. She says the guy’s voice was low and strained and she figured he was disguising it.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Just what I told you. She’d go to the bar, hang out, pick you up, and keep you buying drinks until seven o’clock. She wasn’t given your name, you were described to her simply as a tall, thin white guy. Which leaves open the possibility this could have been a mistake.”

  “A mistake?”

  “Sure. There’s always the chance you’re the wrong tall, thin white guy, and the guy she was waiting for never showed up.”

  “That’s really far-fetched.”

  “Is it? In my experience, fuckups of that nature happen all the time.”

  “You might have told me that before I hired you,” Pritchert said dryly. Before I could think of a comeback, he went on. “I don’t think that merits consideration. I’m the guy, all right. I want to know what happened, and I want to know why. What’s the girl’s name again?”

  “Lucy Blaine.”

  “Lucy Blaine.”

  “I wouldn’t write it down where anyone can find it.”

  “Oh, thanks so much. Whaddya think I am, stupid?”

  I let that lie there.

  “What’s her address?” he said.

  “I don’t have it.”

  “You don’t have it?”

  “No.”

  “Or her phone number?”

  “I don’t have that either.”

  “You didn’t get her address or phone number?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “She wouldn’t give it to me.”

  “Give it to you? What are you, nuts? Give it to you? You found this girl, you talked to her, and then you let her walk away from you?”

  “It was either that or have her call the cops.”

  “So let her call the cops. Let her explain to the cops what she’s doing setting guys up in singles bars.”

  “Yeah, fine,” I said. “Then your story gets written up in the New York Post. I thought you had a proxy fight going on and wanted to hush this up.”

  “I do, but—”

  “Well, you can’t have it both ways. You’re either discreet or you start yelling you’ve been framed, and you keep yelling until someone believes you.”

  “All right, all right,” Pritchert said. “I don’t have time for that now. The point is, if you didn’t get her address or phone number, how are we going to reach her again?”

  “For one thing, we know where she works. For another, I got the name of her agent.”

  “Oh?”

  “Name’s Shelly Daniels. Got an office on Eighth Avenue. I got the phone number.”

  “How do you know it’s legit?”

  “She’s listed in the yellow pages.”

  “Uh-huh. You talk to her yet?”

  “No, but according to the girl, she actually met the guy. He came to her office, made all the preliminary arrangements. Which makes her a more important lead than the girl. Now, you want me to chase her down, I can, but it will have to be later in the day.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m working this morning. I have two cases lined up for Rosenberg and Stone. I’ll knock ’em off as fast as I can, but it’s possible another case will come in. I’ll get to the agent quick as I can, I just can’t tell you when.”

  “Fine,” Pritchert said. “But I think your premise is wrong. The woman’s not important. The important thing is the girl. I need to know what happened during the time I blacked out.”

  “She says she doesn’t know.”

  “Yeah, but she’s probably lying. Okay, so this agent is our contact to the girl. And her name is ...what was it again?”

  “Shelly Daniels.”

  “Shelly Daniels. And the phone number?”

  I gave it to him. Waited while he wrote it down.

  “Now then,” I said. “Before we go any further, you owe me some money.”

  “How much?”

  “Quite a bit. The two hundred you gave me I paid out in bribes.”

  “Bribes?”

  “A hundred bucks to the bartender, and a hundred to the girl. That wipes that out. So you owe me for my time and expenses so far. I put in eight hours yesterday, I had two hours before. That’s five hundred dollars so far.”

  “Eight hours?”

  “You can’t just walk up on the runway of a topless bar and start talking to the dancers. I had to wait for her to leave.”

  “Of course. Okay, you’ll get the money.”

  “So you want me to go ahead with this? Interview the agent?”

  There was a pause. Then, “I don’t see the need. The agent’s only important to contact the girl. I can do that. All right, fine. So you’ll be working. What if I need to reach you?”

  “I’ll be on the beeper. Same as before. You can call the office, have them page me. You still have the number?”

  “Yeah, I got it. Okay. Good work. I’ll talk to you later.”

  And he hung up.

  I blinked.

  Good work?

  I wondered what the guy sounded like when he wasn’t happy about something.

  17.

  MARY MASON BEEPED ME TWICE.

  Doo dah. Doo dah.

  Mary Mason beeped me twice.

  All the doo dah day.

  The first beep was for a boy who fell off a playground swing in Brooklyn.

  The second was for a girl who was hit by a car in Queens.

  The girl in Queens was dead.

  Which was a hell of a sobering note.

  I’d had a trip-and-fal
l in Harlem and a trip-and-fall in the Bronx. Those were the two cases I’d told Cranston Pritchert about. I’d gotten beeped on my way to the second appointment, called in and been given the case in Brooklyn. I was on my way back from that when I was beeped off the Interboro Parkway and given the one in Queens.

  So the fact is, I’d had the jingle Mary Mason beeped me twice in my head when I called in.

  And then she tells me the kid’s dead.

  Jesus.

  Of course, you get them sometimes. You’re dealing with personal injury, and the most extreme personal injury is death.

  A case like that is always rough.

  It’s rougher when it’s a kid.

  At least there’d been the passage of time. It wasn’t like it had happened today. The hit-and-run had taken place last week. So the family would have had time to adjust.

  But still.

  I was not a happy camper as I rang the doorbell.

  Or while I listened to the mother’s story.

  Maria Perez was twenty-four years of age. Divorced. The mother of two.

  Now the mother of one.

  She would have been attractive if she hadn’t been distraught. She cried telling the story. I’d known she would.

  Maria Perez had been crossing Jamaica Avenue with her children to buy a shaved ice. Her one-year-old boy was in a stroller.

  Her four-year-old girl was not.

  A gypsy cab had run the light and run her daughter down.

  “I yelled at her to look out, but she just stood there, she didn’t move,” the mother said, before dissolving into sobs.

  It killed me.

  And what really tore me up was, bad as I felt for this woman with her tragic loss, I couldn’t help thinking why?

  Why did you yell at her? Why did you have to yell at her? Why was she walking by herself? Why weren’t you holding her hand?

  I was bummed as hell driving back to Manhattan. As you might expect. But it wasn’t just the sign-up I’d been through. It was also the fact that Mary Mason had beeped me twice, and each time I’d reacted like Pavlov’s dog, salivating at the expectation that the call would be from Cranston Pritchert, relenting and telling me, yes, of course, go interview the agent, he should have said so in the first place.

  Only it hadn’t been.

  And by the time I got back to Manhattan at three-thirty that afternoon, I had come to the unhappy realization it wasn’t going to be.

  I parked in the midtown parking garage and went back up to the office just on the off chance he’d left a message on the answering machine. But of course he hadn’t.

  So, there I was, three-thirty in the afternoon in midtown Manhattan with nothing to do.

  Except.

  My office was on 47th Street, just off Seventh Avenue.

  Shelly Daniels’ office was on Eighth.

  I wondered how close.

  I got out the phone book, turned to the street conversion page, which tells you where the addresses on the avenues are located. To get the cross street for an address on Eighth Avenue, the instructions were to take the building number, knock off the last digit, divide by two and add ten.

  I did, with an unexpected result.

  Shelly Daniels’ office was only three blocks away.

  How about that?

  Three blocks.

  And Cranston Pritchert wasn’t going to interview the woman. He only cared about her as a source to find the girl. Which was really narrow-minded thinking. Who cared what the girl had to say? I’d already heard her story, and there was nothing there. But this woman had actually met the guy. Talked to him face to face. She could describe who he was. Hell, she might even have a name. She’d at least know what the guy wanted and what the guy said. Not interview her? It simply made no sense.

  I mean, if Cranston Pritchert was going to be that much of a jerk.

  The thing was, I’d asked him if he wanted me to interview the woman, and he’d said not to bother. Which meant he wasn’t going to pay me for it. That was simple enough. If I did it, I wouldn’t get paid. Nobody works for nothing. That’s a given in this business. A guy would have to be a total schmuck.

  Still.

  Three-thirty in the afternoon. With no job to do. And the office just three blocks away.

  I shook my head to clear it.

  Snap out of it. You’re not thinking rationally. There’s no point going over there.

  You’d have to be a total schmuck.

  18.

  IT WAS EXACTLY WHAT I EXPECTED. Which surprised me. But I guess even I can’t always be wrong. Anyway, Shelly Daniels might have had a luxurious suite of offices with a front desk manned by a grim but efficient-looking receptionist, but she didn’t. She had a hole in the wall on the second floor over an all-male movie theater.

  The sign on the door said SHELLY DANIELS TALENT AGENCY. The sign was hanging on a hook, which did not exactly inspire confidence, instead gave the impression the office was being rented by the hour.

  I pushed open the door and went in.

  The office was smaller than mine, and about as poorly furnished: one desk, one chair, a bookcase, and a couple of file cabinets.

  The woman at the desk looked tough as nails, a remarkable accomplishment for someone that short and thin. Her emaciated, sharp, angular face was topped by a beehive of teased red hair. She had wing-tipped glasses on her nose, a pencil behind her ear, and a cigarette dangling from her mouth.

  The cigarette was not her first. A full ashtray, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter were on the desk in front of her. The stench of stale tobacco permeated the office, and a smoggy haze hung in the air.

  The woman was on the phone when I walked in.

  “You heard me,” she said. “You want a hooker, you call somewhere else. You want dancers, you want models, you want show girls, that’s fine. This is not an escort service. We’re not selling sex. You call up and bitch the girl didn’t come across, you’re talking to my deaf ear.” She slammed down the phone, scowled up at me. “What can I do for you?”

  It occurred to me there were a number of approaches I could take with the woman, and most of them weren’t going to fly.

  I pulled out my ID, opened it.

  She put up her hand, scowled again. “Hey, hey, didn’t you hear me on the phone? I run a legitimate operation here, no funny business.”

  “Relax,” I said. “I’m not a cop.”

  She frowned. “Huh?”

  “It’s not a badge, just an ID. I’m a private detective. I need some information.”

  She frowned, squinted at the ID. “Then why the hell didn’t you say so? You come in here, flip that open, all dramatic like some detective on TV.” She cocked her head. “You an actor?”

  “Actually, I used to be.”

  She pointed her finger. “See? I can tell. It’s the eye. I can always spot ’em. You lookin’ for work? No, of course not. You’re a detective. What was it you say you wanted?”

  “I need some information.”

  “Why would you want information from me?”

  “Are you Shelly Daniels?”

  “Is that the information you want?”

  “It’s a start. Actually, it’s about your business.”

  “What about it?”

  “You book dancers, don’t you?”

  “I book dancers, actors, singers, mimes, jugglers, and clowns. What was it you were interested in?”

  “Actually, what you said on the phone just now.”

  She drew back slightly, and her eyes were wary. “What do you mean?”

  “You were talking about the fact you were a talent agent and your bookings were professional, not personal.”

  “Hey, I like that. That’s a nice way of putting it.”

  “Thank you. I’m wondering just what would happen if someone did want to book one of your girls for a private gig.”

  “I have men too.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I have both actors and actresses here. Yo
u said girls as if I were running a meat market.”

  “No offense meant. At any rate, would you happen to be handling the bookings for a woman by the name of Lucy Blaine?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, she said you were, and she wouldn’t give me her phone number, but she gave me yours.”

  “Is this with regard to a booking?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “You want to book her?”

  “No.”

  She frowned. “You want to explain?”

  “According to Lucy Blaine, she was hired through your agency to hang out in a singles bar and have cocktails with a gentleman.” I put up my hand. “Please understand, there is no contention that there was anything wrong with this. No one’s claiming the girl was solicited for prostitution, or anything of the kind. It was, as far as we know, a perfectly straightforward, legal business arrangement. The girl was hired for a specific function, which she performed.”

  The woman’s eyes were hard. “So?”

  “I’ve been hired to find out why. Toward that end I tracked down the woman, Lucy Blaine. I spoke with her last night.” I looked at her. “Perhaps she’s contacted you?”

  Her eyes betrayed nothing. “Go on.”

  “According to her, she never met the gentleman who hired her, she was merely given instructions on the phone. The only one who actually met the man was you.”

  “So?” she said again.

  “That’s why I’ve come to you.”

  “You expect me to divulge information about a client?”

  “A regular client, no. But I have a feeling this wasn’t like that. I have a feeling this was some guy off the street you’d never seen before and will probably never see again. I would say one of the reasons this guy came to your agency was because you didn’t know him from Adam.”

  “What difference would that make?”

  I shrugged. “Well, think it over. When it’s time to stand up and be counted, a lot will depend on which side you’re on.”

  “And just what do you mean by that?”

  “This transaction was somewhat unusual. It is entirely possible that the intent behind it was also illegal.” As she started to flare up, I put up my hand. “Please. I’m not saying you did anything illegal. In fact, that’s the whole point. But, from what the girl said, there’s every indication she was paid to take part in some sort of scam. Should that turn out to be true, it would be helpful if you could establish you were an innocent bystander rather than an active participant.”